118 BAHIA BLANCA TO BUENOS AYRES. [cHAP. V1 
and garters, woven by the Indian women. The patterns were 
very pretty, and the colours brilliant; the workmanship of the 
garters was so good that an English merchant at Buenos Ayres 
maintained they must have been manufactured in England, till 
he found the tassels had been fastened by split sinew. 
September 18th.—We had a very long ride this day. At the 
twelfth posta, which is seven leagues south of the Rio Salado, 
we came to the first estancia with cattle and white women. 
Afterwards we had to ride for many miles through a country 
flooded with water above our horses’ knees. By crossing the 
stirrups, and riding Arab-like with our legs bent up, we con- 
trived to keep tolerably dry. It was nearly dark when we 
arrived at the Salado; the stream was deep, and about forty 
yards wide; in summer, however, its bed becomes almost dry, 
and the little remaining water nearly as salt as that of the sea. 
We slept at one.of the great estancias of General Rosas. It was 
fortified, and of such an extent, that arriving in the dark I 
thought it was a town and fortress. In the morning we saw 
immense herds of cattle, the general here having seventy-four 
square leagues of land. Formerly nearly three hundred men 
were employed about this estate, and they defied all the attacks 
of the Indians. 
September 19th.—Passed the Guardia del Monte. This is a 
nice scattered little town, with many gardens, full of peach and 
quince trees. ‘The plain here looked like that around Buenos 
Ayres; the turf being short and bright green, with beds of 
clover and thistles, and with bizcacha holes. I was very much 
struck with the marked change in the aspect of the country after 
having crossed the Salado. From a coarse herbage we passed on 
to a carpet of fine green verdure. I at first attributed this to 
some change in the nature of the soil, but the inhabitants 
assured me that here, as well as in Banda Oriental, where there 
is as great a difference between the country around Monte Video 
and the thinly-inhabited savannahs of Colonia, the whole was 
to be attributed to the manuring and grazing of the cattle. 
Exactly the same fact has been observed in the prairies* of North 
America, where coarse grass, between five and six feet high, 
* See Mr. Atwater’s account of the Prairies, in Silliman’s N. A. Journal, 
vol. i. p. 117. 
